On January 21st, Obama ordered his Generals to prepare comprehensive withdrawal plans that would safely and responsibly remove combat troops from Iraq. The Generals are formulating plans based upon 16 month, 19 month, and 23 month withdrawal time-tables in order to give Obama a full set of options.

Towards that goal, Obama has opened talks with Turkey for them to allow the US to withdraw troops across Turkish soil (currently US troops are not allowed to use Turkey as a staging area for Iraq).

Obama is keeping the withdrawal plans low key in order to give the Generals time to complete their work, and to reduce political pressure on other countries that we are negotiating with right now to make the withdrawal happen. These countries include Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Germany, and England, all of whom we need cooperation from in order to complete our withdrawal. There will be no precipitous withdraw. This will be a well-planned, well thought-out military operation.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Iraq is at least 4,243 US soldiers. At least 31,035 have been wounded.